Slow Drawing and a new pen

I have been enjoying joining in with Slow Drawing with Amy Maricle at Mindful Art Studio since last summer.  I have mentioned her on my blog before, but wanted to focus on her for this post and share the joy! I thik she started the slow drawing classes during 2020 but I only found them last year.  She was an art therapist and has created lots of courses, as well as the weekly slow drawing class (in the UK, on a  Wednesday at 6 pm, but the videos are available until Friday).  She provides a prompt and an example each week,  (except for a break over Christmas) and I have been loving it.  There is a quiet meditation, just to help focus on the here and now and then the drawing for the remainder of the hour.  

I have been surprised just how much I like using simple media - a black waterproof pen, watercolour card and sometimes watercolours.  From next week, to get the link to the video, you will need to be on her mailing list, but it is free.  I have been using a Uniball Eye micro pen, which is really good and is my go to permanent black pen, but I decided to buy the pen Amy recommends, as she is trying to not use non-refillable pens.     

This is the Lamy Safari fountain pen with an extra fine nib.  It can be used with cartridges but I bought a converter so it can be refilled with ink. I tried it out last night and it was very good.

This was the pattern last night - the patterns are usually taken from nature - and I found the repetitive lines very relaxing to draw.  

Here is my index book with all the patterns I have drawn so far...page 1...

...and pages 2 and 3.  Initially, the patterns seem complicated, but they are broken down to make them easy to draw. 

I have taken a couple of her courses which I enjoyed, particularly 'Little Book of Wonder'.  I thoroughly recommend Amy's book too - Draw Yourself Calm.  I am looking forward to adding to my index book as well as to the little journals I made when taking her classes and using my new pen much more.